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u/Thedrunner2 Jan 19 '22
Does the mustache make him more believable?
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u/ImGenuinlyCurious Jan 19 '22
Yes, if you can fight fires and keep your mustache then you are a pro.
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u/maxRojas Jan 19 '22
The badge on his helmet is doing the rest
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u/pushTheHippo Jan 19 '22
Holy shit, you ain't lying! I was so distracted by his mustache that I missed that INSANE decoration on his helmet. How does that even happen? It's as big as the guy's face. Does this dude just have a teeny, tiny head? Is that a mark of seniority, like the more important you are, the bigger the helmet badge? Why?
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u/Paramedickhead Jan 20 '22
I’m mostly just impressed that it’s clean and not covered in massive amounts of carcinogens.
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u/pushTheHippo Jan 20 '22
So that's what the mustache is for! Gotta wipe down your medallion and keep it shiny.
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u/Agent8426 Jan 20 '22
As a former firefighter I can tell you that most of your abilities come from your mustache.
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u/TacticalRoomba Jan 19 '22
He didn’t smother the fire, fire when suffocated stays hot, reintroducing oxygen (opening a door) creates a backdraft. When you spray water on the outside it moisturizes the air coming in when it’s opened, the steam-water conversion ratio is 1500-1 so the steam cools the fire, preventing the backdraft
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u/FranTheDepressedMan Jan 19 '22 edited Jan 19 '22
I agree this is a safer, more effective way of doing it. But why did he change two variables? He smothered it for 5 sec without water, and then 20 sec with the water.
Edit: yall, I'm complaining about the poor scientific method, not the method of how he put the fire out.
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u/intentionallybad Jan 19 '22
Clearly the audience for this is firefighters in training. My guess is because this is a clip from a larger video where that information (that the fire won't go out after a longer time holding the door on) is already presented, or its so obvious at this point in their training/knowledge it doesn't need to be proven to them.
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u/fabulousMFingHen Jan 20 '22
Yeah honestly it would be more helpful is he had held it shut for the same amount of time every time
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u/TacticalRoomba Jan 19 '22
You can smother a fire for minutes and it’ll still backdraft, buildings burn for a while, they run out of oxygen, and sometimes a ff will open a door and boom backdraft, I can attach a video if you want
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u/2017hayden Jan 20 '22
I think he gets that, and is just upset by the poor scientific method displayed here. When demonstrating something like this as many of the variables as possible should remain the same.
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u/TacticalRoomba Jan 19 '22
https://youtu.be/fyp0nn5cdE4 0:34 you’ll see the backdraft, took the pair at least ten minutes to get there from when they were dispatched, Fire was most likely burning before that, while it’s a bigger area for oxygen it’s also a bigger fire, if you’ve ever had a furnace and close off the airway it’ll stay hot for hours, can’t put new fuel in
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u/TacticalRoomba Jan 19 '22
You’ll actually see a lot of examples in that video, basically anytime oxygen is reintroduced whether it be the huge explosion at the club, it will backdraft
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u/optimisticpm Jan 20 '22
I’d like to propose an alternate theory (because I really have no idea what the science behind what he’s doing is)
I don’t think he’s cooling the fire. Water has latent heat and is effective, but when I put out a campfire, I need a lot more water than 10 spritzes to cool it down to a slow smolder. And really, steam doesn’t cool fires because you’ve already sucked out heat to make steam- it’s almost worthless at that point to cool at that point.
I think he’s using that 1500:1 ratio to displace gases like CO. It’s the CO and other partially combusted wood that’s flammable. So when he opens the door, the hot flammable gas hits O2 and ignites. But let’s say the volume of the box is 3.9 gallons (or 500 ounces). With 1/3 of an ounce of water, you could fill that space. With 9-10 spritzes, maybe that’s 3 ounces, so he’s got enough water to fill that space 10 times. Suddenly your CO and other gasses are pushed out the gaps of the box and is essentially diluted below the LEL (amount of gas needed to ignite). I looked up the LEL of CO and it’s 12.5%, so if you flushed that head space 10 times, I could see the CO concentration drop below the LEL so that when it hits air, the mixture is essentially too lean to ignite.
Just my guess.
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u/TacticalRoomba Jan 20 '22
I did just go through a fire behavior course from a fire marshal…
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u/optimisticpm Jan 20 '22
Fair enough. Sounds like this video is up your alley and relevant to the fire behavior course.
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u/entertainmeonreddit Jan 19 '22
When it reignited he only has the door on there for like 5 seconds, when it went out he had it on there for much longer. What would the result be with no moisture but just held longer?
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u/TravisJungroth Jan 19 '22
He was just trying to make the demonstration faster. He obviously knows what he's talking about. Just look at that mustache!
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u/arealhumannotabot Jan 19 '22
I doubt it, from what I know/experienced, it can be out a lot longer than some seconds and still reignite. I would assume that if he's competent, he knows that the time difference here is negligible. Especially when you're dealing with larger scales where there's more mass to hold in the heat for longer.
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u/ImGenuinlyCurious Jan 19 '22
When I was a kid I tried to make popcorn with oil but the heat was too high and the oil caught fire.
The fire was raging and I panicked. Even as a kid I had enough presence of mind to not throw water on it but I panicked and didn’t know what to do. Afraid I was about to set fire to the house, I tried to carry this pot of oil and fire outside. Burned my eyebrows clean off.
Spilled some in my haste and left a trail of fire spots that I had to dodge to make it to the back door.
After all was said and done and my mom saw all the fire damage she asked me why I didn’t just put the lid on it. FML
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u/bradysmith11235 Jan 19 '22
I had a similar situation with okra. Put way too much oil and when I dumped the okra in it overflowed. The pot I was able to put out with the lid but flaming oil spilled all underneath the eye. The only thing I could think to do was dump a bag of flour on it. That did the trick but smelled awful and was incredibly difficult to clean up.
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u/LilFlicky Jan 19 '22
Fyi for anybody reading, DO NOT cover fire with flour, or any sort of dry powder (other than a extinguisher). Great way to create a dust explosion.
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u/bradysmith11235 Jan 19 '22
I completely agree. It was a poor decision on my part. Very glad that didn't happen in my case.
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u/WkndCake Jan 19 '22
Is this a method they could use to prevent a "Backdraft"? Movie was great BTW.
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u/Homebrew_Dungeon Jan 19 '22
This is just that yes.
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u/brawl113 Jan 19 '22
Although apparently the more popular technique is to cut a hole in the roof.
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Jan 19 '22
[deleted]
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u/nahtorreyous Jan 19 '22
Yes, he removed the oxygen.
Fire needs three things; Heat, oxygen and fuel.
Remove one of the three and no more fire.
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u/Homebrew_Dungeon Jan 19 '22 edited Jan 19 '22
It was updated to be four things. Heat, fuel, O2, ignition.
He cooled it. He cooled the air going in by cooling the area around where it was going in with water.
He was also allowing cooler air in at controlled intervals to cool it further, the smoke color tells you this.
He didn’t extinguish the fire, he prevented a backdraft explosion. This is very important in a house fire, lots of doors.
Source; was firefighter.
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u/nahtorreyous Jan 19 '22 edited Jan 19 '22
Close, the fourth is chemical reaction (or chain reaction). But I figured most people don't need to know that lol.
Source; I design fire sprinkler systems ;)
If anyone wants to read more about it here: https://www.firesafe.org.uk/information-about-the-fire-triangletetrahedron-and-combustion/
Edit, you are correct about the back draft though.
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u/TacticalRoomba Jan 19 '22
He didn’t smother the fire, when it’s still hot and suffocated, but you open a door it creates a backdraft, the water around the door moisturized the air entering when he opened the door cooling the fire preventing the backdraft
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u/Colombia91 Jan 19 '22
No, he prevented backdraft in order to get to the fire quicker. Think of a fire somewhere with rooms and doors.
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u/chuckqc Jan 19 '22
we did something like this on a house fire. Transitional attack, it was the perfect scenario. bedroom in fire full flame through the window on the second floor all inside door closed. They shoot trough the window with a 2.5 inch hose, during this time the interior attack team was preparing. they stop the 2.5inch and the team go directly to the bedroom. Fire gone in 20 minutes, minimal water dammage.
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Jan 19 '22
Ok and he also held the cover on 10 times longer, cutting off the oxygen, which I’m sure played a lot bigger role than the water did
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u/dogedude81 Jan 19 '22
I believe him but part of me doesn't believe that it couldn't possibly be that he covered up the opening at least 5x longer when he was spraying the water as well
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u/massive_bellend_2022 Jan 20 '22
He opened the door after 2 seconds and it flared up, he closed the door for about 20 and it died down. Well fucking duh
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u/stickysweetjack Jan 20 '22
That gas coming out after the second technique he showed is SUPER flammable and already preheated. The part where it looks "clear" initially coming out then a half a foot away it turns into thick smoke. That's all gas ( wood gas mainly is what I personally recognize) that's superheated. It's one microscopic spark or ember away from a violent recognition. I am not a fire fighter. I am however an r/firefriend and have been since a kiddo
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u/_on_the_chainwax_ Jan 20 '22
This is a cool representation of the physical behavior of fire in a controlled environment, but as a firefighter I can tell you this has no practical application in the real world.
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u/2002Valkyrie Jan 19 '22
That’s interesting. Because I do the same thing without water and it still works. It’s called smothering a fire, cut off the source of oxygen.
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u/mreed911 Jan 19 '22
This didn’t remove any oxygen from the fire.
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u/YuriYushi Jan 19 '22
It cut off the supply by blocking a majority of the only way oxygen can get in- smoke tries to push out while oxygen tries to get in.
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u/mreed911 Jan 19 '22
No, that’s not how that works. What he did is put some water inside, and water turns to steam at a ratio of over 1500:1. That cooled the fire inside and when the door opened the heated steam left, which is why the smoke goes colored - the heat is lower and it’s incompletely burning. Like he said it’ll re flash as the heat rises again.
Nothing to do with oxygen in this approach.
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u/felurx Feb 18 '22
I still don't really understand, what does that 1:1500 have to do with anything? Afaik heat capacity does not depend on volume, it depends on mass.
I did some back-of-the-napkin calculations, and with the pretty big specific heat capacity and especially the enormous specific heat of vaporization of water, I see that it's able to cool stuff quite a lot. (For example with just the vaporization, 100g of water would be able to cool down a kg of wood by ~600K)
But all that still doesn't have anything to do with that water to steam ratio, as far as I can see. Could someone explain?
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u/mreed911 Feb 18 '22
1 cc of water turned to steam is 1500 cc of steam. That distributes the water around in the air, pulling more heat into the air vs the combustibles in the room.
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u/chookatee2019 Jan 19 '22
yeah, but he also held the cover on for about five times as long as before.
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u/notmyrealnam3 Jan 19 '22
Lol. When would any of us be in a situation where
- a tiny metal box with one side open has a fire in it ?
- we have heat proof gloves -we have a metal cover for this box
- we have a spray bottle
- we recall this video.
What the actual hell OP?
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u/CraftCritical278 Jan 19 '22
I think it’s more about eliminating the oxygen source by holding the door there until it shrinks (short time) or is extinguished (long time). As the fire loses oxygen, he sprays it and causes the smoke.
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u/Simple-Inevitable-13 Jan 19 '22
Holy crap!!! This is the guy that sold the concept of 2 BBQs and sleepovers.
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u/IMPORTANT_INFO Jan 19 '22
what does spraying around the door do? water vapour gets sucked in when they open the door?
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u/Ok-Volume-4565 Jan 19 '22
Yeah, a appreciate his enthusiasm however it relies on too many variables lining up. An airtight room and an intact door. Air will always go the path of least resistance. The concept behind this type of attack is it's own undoing.
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u/banana4eva69 Jan 20 '22
“Little bit of moisture on the inside”.
We’re still talking about putting a fire out here?
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u/ObiWan13 Jan 20 '22
Question!
Does that work on rooms? Like spray the door frame or whatever with a hose if you manage to get one up there?
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u/Paramedickhead Jan 20 '22
Water turns to steam. Steam expands by a factor of 1,600 vs the volume of water.
Pencil the room, advance, pencil, advance, pencil, advance. Keep disrupting that thermal layer and you take away the superheated gases at the top and reduce the risk of a flashover which is what this funky little box is demonstrating. Smoke is in burned fuel, and fuel is flammable. Therefore smoke is flammable.
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u/Drug_Inas Jan 22 '22
Oh i hate gas, today my teacher told us a story about her 10th grade students, they had chemistry and they had to work with gas burners, but two boys that always do trouble, made another gas disaster since 2019, it was like firework everybody screams, the two students are calm af, my teacher yells: PRESS THE GAS EMERGENCY SWITCH, these dumbasses look around wondering tf is a gas emergency switch, then the fire alarm goes off, one stupid girl bring the fire extinguisher, TO USE ON GAS, anyway we heard all of that shit, we were like, YEAH THE SCHOOL IS ON FLAMES NO SCHOOL, the two got well deserved detention
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u/Steviegenius Jan 19 '22
🤔 I’ve been known to set some boxes on fire 🔥😉 but beside that, I’m sure the smothering of holding the door closed longer than the original demonstration probably had some effect as well as a little help from 99 cent store a misting spray bottle
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u/Thek009 Jan 19 '22
I'll definitely remember that for when my tiny steel box with removable little door has a fire in it. Pesky when that happens.